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Harvey Mackay: Warren Bennis led the way
Harvey Mackay, Special to The Register 12:31 a.m. CDT
August 18, 2014
Warren Bennis was synonymous with leadership.
Unfortunately, we lost Warren earlier this month, but his
leadership lessons and principles will live on for years. He wrote more than 30
books on leadership, including his landmark work, "On Becoming a
Leader." He advised U.S. Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Ford and Reagan.
I got to know him during his 30 years at the University
of Southern California where he was a distinguished professor of business
administration and headed the Leadership Institute. I had the privilege of
serving on Warren's board.
About two years ago, when I interviewed Warren for a
group I was mentoring, he said, "I don't know of a time when leadership is
more of an issue.
"To survive in the 21st century, we're going to need
a new generation of leaders, not managers," he said. He clarified that
leaders are strategic thinke…

5 cool new security research breakthroughs
By Bob Brown
NetworkWorld | Aug 19, 2014 1:42 PM PT
University and vendor researchers are congregating in San
Diego this week at USENIX Security ’14 to share the latest findings in security
and privacy, and here are 5 that jumped out to me as being particularly
interesting.
*On the Feasibility of Large-Scale Infections of iOS
Devices
Georgia Tech researchers acknowledge that large-scale iOS
device infections have been few and far between, but they claim weaknesses in
the iTunes syncing process, device provisioning process and file storage could
leave iPhones, iPads and other Apple products vulnerable to attack via botnets.
The bad guys could get to the iOS devices via a compromised computer, they say,
to install attacker-signed apps and swipe personal info. The researchers came
to their conclusion after examining DNS queries within known botnets.
*XRay: Enhancing the Web’s Transparency with Differential
Correlation
Columbia University res…

11 Internet of Things ideas worth watching
By Bob Brown, NetworkWorld | Aug 26, 2014 5:20 AM PT
Cisco solicits IoT ideas in Innovation Grand Challenge
Cisco has launched the Internet of Things (IoT)
Innovation Grand Challenge “to spearhead an industry-wide initiative to
accelerate the adoption of breakthrough technologies and products that will
contribute to the growth and evolution of the Internet of Things.” Awards of
$250,000 will be shared among the three winners, and can be used to jump-start
the ventures. Here’s a sampling of the recently revealed 19 semi-finalists.
Three grand winners will be announced on Oct. 14.
Solar Freakin’ Roadways
Cisco has to like this one, as it suggests using
intelligent solar panels to replace everything from roadway paving to
basketball court asphalt. They can heat surfaces to do away with icy driveways,
and for Cisco, they would include integration with its fiber switches along
highways and elsewhere.
Woosh: Smart urban water stations
Prototypes o…

By Ed Christman and Glenn Peoples | August 28, 2014 8:59
AM EDT
The market for albums continues to recede, following a
(now) long-standing trend that has been accelerated by streaming's success.
As streaming gathers momentum, the U.S. music industry
keeps breaking sales milestones -- the wrong kind.
This week's 3.97-million album sales tally is the
smallest weekly sum for album sales since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking data
in 1991. It's also the first time weekly sales have fallen below four million
in that time span.
Last week was fairly slow for the top releases. The top
album, Wiz Khalifa's Blacc Hollywood, debuted with sales of 90,000 units, a
figure below the first-week sales of many other top debuts of 2014. Three other
albums debuted inside the top 10 but averaged only 31,000 units apiece. And the
Frozen soundtrack is no longer moving in excess of 100,000 units per week.
To compare, a year ago this past week (ending Aug. 25,
2013), …

August 28, 2014 6:23 pm
Apple tightens privacy rules for health apps
By Tim Bradshaw in San Francisco
Apple is tightening up its privacy rules to ensure a new
generation of health and fitness apps are not thwarted by growing concerns over
how developers use personal data.
The rules will stop personal data collected through
Apple’s new HealthKit platform being used to target adverts for products such
as weight loss remedies.
HealthKit, which will track data including exercise
levels and sleep, is one of the key features of a new mobile operating system
that will next month launch alongside a new iPhone and a highly anticipated
wearable device, dubbed the iWatch by pundits.
Shares in Apple touched a fresh high on Thursday after
Apple sent out invites for a media launch on September 9, at which the group is
expected to unveil new iPhones and possibly a wearable device.
Health apps, which can track intimate data such as heart
rate, have seen a spike in popularity in the past year. But st…

Telegraph.co.uk
Thursday 28 August 2014
Scientists find secret of reversing bad memories
Bad memories could be reversed after scientists
discovered the part of the brain which links emotions to past events
Scientists at MIT have discovered which part of the brain
controls bad memories and how to reverse them
By Sarah Knapton,
Science Correspondent
6:00PM BST 27 Aug 2014
Bad memories of past trauma can leave people emotionally
scarred for life.
But now neuroscientists believe they can erase feelings
of fear or anxiety attached to stressful events, in a breakthrough which could
help treat depression or post-traumatic stress disorder.
Researchers at MIT, US, have discovered which brain
circuits attach emotions to memories, and crucially, how to reverse the link.
They managed to ‘switch off’ feelings of fear in mice
which had been conditioned to feel anxious. It is likely the same technique
could be used in humans.
“In our day to day lives we encounter a variety of events
and epis…

15 simple, secret Windows tips and tricks designed to
save you time
By Brad Chacos, PCWorld | Aug 27, 2014 4:13 AM PT
These small, yet obscure Windows tips and tricks can make
a big difference in your workflow—and save you tons of time in the process.
Hidden powers and secret timesavers
Time is money, or so the saying goes. And even if you're
plunked down in front of your PC for fun or a hobby project, every unnecessary
click and hassle you bump into burns away precious seconds of your life.
Nobody wants to waste time endlessly navigating menus.
Fear not! Dr. PCWorld has the cure. Take these 15 secret Windows tricks to
streamline your computing experience and eradicate little irritations that trip
you up throughout the day. You won't need to call me in the morning.
Launch taskbar programs with your keyboard
Many of us—especially users of the Start Menu-less
Windows 8—use the Windows taskbar as a quick launch bar, populating it with our
day-to-day programs. Opening those progr…

For sale: Systems that can secretly track where cellphone
users go around the globe
By Craig Timberg August 24 at 7:02 PM
Makers of surveillance systems are offering governments
across the world the ability to track the movements of almost anybody who
carries a cellphone, whether they are blocks away or on another continent.
The technology works by exploiting an essential fact of
all cellular networks: They must keep detailed, up-to-the-minute records on the
locations of their customers to deliver calls and other services to them.
Surveillance systems are secretly collecting these records to map people’s
travels over days, weeks or longer, according to company marketing documents
and experts in surveillance technology.
The world’s most powerful intelligence services, such as
the National Security Agency and Britain’s GCHQ, long have used cellphone data
to track targets around the globe. But experts say these new systems allow less
technically advanced governments to track people in…

Meet Cobol's hard core fans
These folks won't migrate. The reason probably isn't what
you're thinking.
Robert L. Mitchell
August 21, 2014 (Computerworld)
With the long-anticipated Cobol skills shortage starting
to bite, many businesses have been steadily migrating applications off the
mainframe. Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina has been doubling down.
The healthcare insurer processes nearly 10% of all
healthcare claims in the U.S., and uses six top-of-the line IBM zEnterprise
EC12 systems running millions of lines of optimized Cobol to process 19.4
billion online healthcare transactions annually. Its custom-built claims
processing engine has been thoroughly modernized and kept up to date, says BCBS
of SC vice president and chief technology officer Ravi Ravindra. "It was
always in Cobol, and it always will be."
Cobol was designed to handle transactional workloads, and
for large-scale transaction processing it still can't be beat, says Lonnie
Emard…